PERFECTING THE SHOT: Mathias Enard in conversation

We are excited to welcome Mathias Enard to Blackwell's to hear him discuss his novel, Perfecting the Shot, now translated into English after twenty years and a ruthless demonstration of how violence corrupts the soul.

About the book:

In a nameless city torn apart by civil war, a teenage sniper has only one goal: to fire the perfect shot. He sublimates himself into his weapon, learns to maintain impassivity, controls his breath, listens to his body and the beat of his heart. Lying in wait on rooftops, he takes aim at people below while his traumatized mother cowers in their flat.

But the violence eats away at any sense of morality as he kills civilians and combatants indiscriminately, for the sake of killing itself. His routine is disrupted by the arrival of Myrna, a fifteen-year-old girl hired to care for his mother, and his increasingly disturbing obsession with her soon threatens to push them all into the abyss.

About the author:

Mathias Enard, born in 1972, studied Persian and Arabic and spent long periods in the Middle East. He won several awards for Zone, including the Prix du Livre Inter and the Prix Décembre, and won the Liste Goncourt/Le Choix de l’Orient, the Prix littéraire de la Porte Dorée and the Prix du Roman-News for Street of Thieves. He won the 2015 Prix Goncourt, the 2017 Leipziger Book Award for European Understanding, the Premio Gregor von Rezzori and was shortlisted for the 2017 Man Booker International Prize for Compass. Perfecting the Shot is his seventh novel to appear with Fitzcarraldo Editions.

If you cannot make the event but would like a dedicated copy of the book, please email events.manchester@blackwell.co.uk or call us on 0161 274 3331.

Our event format is usually a 45 minute discussion between the author and interviewer, followed by a chance for audience members to ask questions. There will be the opportunity to get your book signed/dedicated after the event.

Events are a brilliant opportunity to discover new books, meet authors and likeminded readers and learn something new.Support your local bookshop and help us keep the Manchester literary scene vibrant and exciting. You can follow us on Eventbrite and social media (@BlackwellsMCR) to keep up to date on upcoming events.